MAYURA’S INDIAN menu goes on for pages; chicken vindaloo, gobi Manchurian and other restaurant ubiquities fill its columns. The key to accessing the kitchen’s greatness is to know that owner Padmini Aniyan grew up in Kerala, the coastal southwestern state of India. The verdant region has been a global center of spice farming and maritime trade routes for millennia, creating one of the world’s unique cuisines. Taste it in the Kerala chicken curry, in which coconut milk carries the flavors of lemony curry leaves, black pepper and cardamom. The uses of rice in Kerala extend far beyond boiled whole grains. As one example: appam, round flatbreads made of fermented ground rice and coconut batter. They look like American pancakes at the stage of cooking where the bubbles have just set and you’re ready to flip them. But they are their own pleasure: lacy yet fluffy, tangy but also innately sweet and made for swiping through gravy. Find appam and other Kerala-specific dishes listed under “Mayura Specials,” or ask Aniyan for her guidance.

• 10406 Venice Blvd., Culver City, (310) 559-9644, mayura-indian-restaurant.com